NEW YORK – It started on an almost inexplicable downer that had everyone in the Winnipeg Jets organization searching for answers.

Only four days later, the very same road trip has become full of positives.

Back-to-back dramatic victories over the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers have kept the Jets in the playoff hunt and have shown that this team can get the job done at gut check time.

There were several keys to the Jets bounce back after a demoralizing 4-1 loss to the Panthers Tuesday night in Sunrise, Fla.

No. 1 is simple: Goaltending, goaltending, goaltending.

Backup goaltender Al Montoya was the star of Thursday’s 2-1 win over the Lightning, while starter Ondrej Pavelec was both razor sharp and motivated in Friday’s 3-2 overtime win over the Panthers.

Nobody wants the goaltenders to have to be that good every night – a couple of slipups from either netminder and the results would have been very different – but in this season-long playoff race it’s the kind of performance every team needs.

Pavelec’s play was especially encouraging. He looked a bit tired – though he said he wasn’t – while getting beaten for four goals against the Panthers Tuesday. Friday night he simply stole two points for the Jets, stopping 38 shots and making a dozen high-quality saves.

Another huge key for the Jets is penalty killing. Despite a big disparity in the number of power-play chances awarded in the three games in Florida, the Jets penalty killers didn’t get scored upon once.

The Jets killed off 11 straight penalties and won the special teams battle despite getting only three power plays of their own in three games.

Pavelec and Montoya were the Jets best penalty killers but a lot of credit also has to go to defencemen Zach Bogosian and Ron Hainsey, forwards James Wright and Jim Slater and everyone else who saw time on the PK.

Killing off a two-minute, two-man advantage for Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis, Vinny Lecavalier and the Lightning on Thursday was the biggest moment of the trip. That can’t be understated.

The work of the goaltenders and the penalty killers allowed Bryan Little and Dustin Byfuglien to provide the heroics. Little scored the winning goal late in Thursday’s game and Byfuglien scored a highlight-reel goal with 41 seconds left in overtime on Friday night.

Timely goals are so huge and the Jets have been getting them consistently while going 7-2 in their last nine road games.

It would also appear the Jets are finally learning not to get ahead of themselves just because they have earned a couple of wins. Nobody was overly excited about beating the Lightning on Thursday because it was just one game. Nobody was overly excited about beating the Panthers on Friday because they didn’t really play all that well.

It’s a good sign that they won’t be feeling too satisfied with themselves when they roll into New Jersey for another big game against the Devils Sunday.

That would be pleasing to head coach Claude Noel, who is still having trouble getting Tuesday’s disinterested loss to the injury-ravaged Panthers out of his head.

He doesn’t want to see any signs of satisfaction in the way his team plays. Hunger, desperation, intensity and passion are the kinds of characters that will take this team to the playoffs.

Perhaps the Jets will look back at Tuesday’s loss as a turning point in the season, a game that gave them the impetus to look in the mirror and find out who and where they really are.

They certainly showed something in the heart department with the win in Tampa Bay and then found a way to earn two points despite being outplayed in Florida.

With half the shortened season now in the books, the playoffs are certainly within striking distance.

At the end of the high-energy, physical shootout loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday, my immediate thought was that if the Winnipeg Jets can play at that level for the final 19 games of the season they will surely make the playoffs.